Hiccups Complicating Myocardial Infarction

Abstract

HICCUPS occurring with acute myocardial infarction indicate an extremely grave prognosis.¹ It has been said that all patients afflicted with this distressing complication die, but the clinician will find little published information on the subject.This complication was first described by Weiss² in 1939. No other articles appeared until 1951, when Rubin et al.³ reported a case of myocardial infarction with hiccups that responded to left-phrenic-nerve crush after other measures, including quinidine, had failed.There is considerable information about postoperative and postencephalitic hiccups. However, the very number of divergent treatments indicates the need for further investigation of this problem. Bailey . . .